Pomp & Circumstance & Love

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This is an article that came out about our engagement with all the delicious cute details!

Pomp & Circumstance & Love

There is no bad way to propose, but some proposals are better than others

By Rick Rouan

Staff Writer

On the cool November night that Bob Richardson and Ashley Alexander started dating, Ashley told her then-close friend that she had two things to tell him.

One, her feet were cold. Two, friendship just wasn't enough.

At Wittenberg University's 162nd commencement on May 12, she only had to tell him "yes."

Bob proposed marriage to his girlfriend of six months after the East Asian studies major descended the podium with her diploma.

"Proposals are supposed to be really extravagant, anyway — big deals — and that's the way I am," Bob said. "I like big deals; I like surprises."

These sort of surprises aren't exactly uncommon this time of year in Clark County. In the past three years, the Clark County Probate Court issued more than 14 percent of total marriage licenses in June and more than 35 percent during the summer months.

Nationally, 31 percent of weddings occur in the summer — 10 percent in June — according to TheKnot.com.

The 22-year-olds, who on separate occasions described the same favorite sunset-watching moments together on a hill at Wittenberg, won't set a wedding date until they return from watching the sun set halfway across the world in Matsumoto, Japan, where they could spend up to two years.

Bob, who studied psychology, and Ashley, who minored in Japanese, will teach Japanese children English through the Japan Exchange and Teaching (JET) Programme. The application process for the program was extensive and came with no guarantee that the couple would be placed near each other, but recent news from the program put them at ease.

"We were placed in the same city, and we're going to be able to live in the same apartment. ... We're actually going to be working together," Ashley said. "It was definitely a leap of faith."

The wheels began to turn for Bob, a Parma native, four years ago when he met his fiancee-to-be as a Wittenberg freshman. At the time, in casual conversation, he discovered that this Columbus girl wanted no ordinary proposal, but something extravagant and embarrassing.

"For it to be me and him in a restaurant, and all of a sudden turn to each other and say, 'You know, it's about time we got married' ... that's just lame," Ashley said. "I wanted it to be really special for both of us because it was going to be a moment that we couldn't do over again."

From there, the two forged a friendship that would become more in November 2006 when they began dating and talking about a future together. While both described the relationship as "serious" throughout the six months, Ashley said she didn't expect the proposal for another few months.

But Bob was ready — ready enough to ask his best friend for a ride to the mall a few weeks before graduation to pick up the engagement ring: an elegant ½-carat solitare diamond set in a thin, platinum Tiffany band. Bob kept his plans shrouded in secrecy, even from his best friend, until commencement.

Rising confidently from his seat on the opposite end of the university's Commencement Hollow, Bob moved through a black-robed sea of graduates to greet his girlfriend as she descended the podium.

"I just did it. I just got out of my seat almost as if I wasn't doing it myself. It was like my body was moving on its own. ... I timed it perfectly somehow," Bob said. "When I went over there everyone was like, 'Go Bob, go Bob.'"

And Bob went.

On one knee between throngs of still-seated students, Bob took a surprised Ashley's hand and asked her to marry him, sharing his request for Ashley's lifetime commitment for the first time with family and friends.

"It was just immediate tunnel vision, and I kind of got in trouble a little bit later because I had heard what he said, but then I had also kind of mixed it up in my head because I was so focused on how much I loved him and how beautiful this moment felt to me," Ashley said.

One person who did find out was Wittenberg President Mark Erickson, who announced it to the audience and asked that the two leave their assigned seats to sit together.

"We kissed for quite a while, I guess, because the president interjected and said, 'Oh, well, I guess it was a bad idea that we got these two together,'" Bob said. "It was just like something out of a movie."